Article: Taking a Swing at Aikido
Posted 9/29/2005 4:03pm [from Jun Akiyama]
Here's an interesting article entitled, "Taking a Swing at Aikido" which details a story of Hiroshi Arakawa, student of Morihei Ueshiba sensei, who helped coach the famous Japanese batter Sadaharu Oh to help perfect his batting swing. Oh later became the homerun king. The article reads, in part, "Using the concepts of Aikido to hit a baseball, however, had turned out to be no easy thing — especially when Oh had not been allowed to practice the art directly.
Because his team had been afraid he would be injured practicing a martial art (injuries were inevitable in Japanese martial arts), Oh had been limited to watching his batting coach practice the art. They would meet later and discuss what his coach had felt during each technique that Oh had observed. Neither Oh nor Arakawa had given up on each other or their belief that the principals of Aikido could help Oh master himself and hit."